Presently, there is room for one person on each boat. The ships advertise for crew members each time they port. “We”re living in very tight space with total strangers.” Crew members are in close quarters and have two choices: Become part of the family or get off the boat at the next stop. With help from motors and other modern-day amenities like restrooms and small stoves, the ships docked at the marina are a bit ahead of Columbus” time. The original Santa Maria was too large, heavy and slow “for the business of discovery,” Columbus wrote in a journal entry after the ship sank on the first voyage, according to. But, brought in pieces and assembled in Columbus, Ohio, the boat is too large to navigate the waters, Friauf said. Replicas of the Santa Maria are in Corpus Christi, Texas, parked at a museum, and on the river in Columbus, Ohio. At the Columbus Marina, he said, the boats are probably on about 8 feet of water they need at least 7. The Santa Maria, Sanger explained, would be 95 feet in length and require 14 feet of water to float. Most children equate the vessel to a pirate ship, he said, and echoed Friauf in saying many people are surprised by how small the ships are.Īnother popular question: Where”s the Santa Maria? His father is one of the boat”s rotating captains, and Sanger “grew up on the water.” It is five years old.įirst Mate Stephen Sanger of the British Virgin Islands has been traveling with the Pinta for two years. The Pinta, at 85 feet long, is about 50-percent bigger than the original Pinta, to offer walk-aboard tours and an air-conditioned main cabin for private parties and charters. It was later donated to the Columbus Foundation. The Niña is the same size as Columbus” original Niña and utilizes a 450-pound anchor retrieved by divers off the coast of Africa. Friauf sailed the boat through the Panama Canal to Florida nearly six years ago and has been one of its rotating captains since. The Niña was built 19 years ago by the Columbus Foundation. The two boats have been touring together since 2009, beginning in Honduras. “I imagined them to be a lot bigger,” admitted Shanon Richey, a crew member from Crossville, Ala.” In history books, they seem massive.” The city sent out a request for proposals and posted a virtual tour of the boat online in 2018.“They are a lot smaller than people realize,” he said of The Niña and Pinta, which also is at the marina and open for tours. At one point, six potential buyers, including Aransas Pass, expressed interest. The ship, which is owned by the city of Corpus Christi, has been for sale since 2018. Parts from those two ships were used to help restore La Niña. La Niña’s sisters, the Pinta and Santa Maria, were demolished several years ago after deteriorating in dry dock at the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History. At one point, the city of Aransas Pass had expressed interest in buying the ship, but that idea sank as well. The association had hoped to raise enough money after the ship last sank in April 2019 to move it to a shipyard in Aransas Pass for repairs. “It was decided that the La Niña would be destroyed because she was becoming an increasing liability for the city of Corpus Christi where she was in the marina.” “We were informed that we could not wait any longer for the money to get her across the bay and restore her as planned,” said Kim Mrazek, president of the Columbus Sailing Association. The last of three replicas of the ships sailed by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century was dismantled in Corpus Christi Bay on Thursday, January 16, after she once again sank at her perch in the city marina.
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